My hand is already declared – fruitcake is my friend not my foe. Our family has a long tradition of homemade Christmas fruit cake. This is one task my mother often left close to Christmas but it never seemed to make any difference to how good it tasted! Mostly I do mine a few weeks out from Christmas. For decades I used my mother’s Christmas Cake recipe which she tells me came originally from Isla Kerr at the Gas Company in Brisbane, but known far & wide as her cake. Then, oh traitor, one day I saw a recipe in the Australian Women’s Weekly that I thought would be worth a try…a Green Peppercorn fruitcake made with spices and Cointreau. Sounds odd to you? Trust me, it isn’t, unless you don’t like anything slightly spicy. For years I was like a dual citizen in Christmas Cake land…I’d make one of each. Eventually I aligned my loyalty with just one and settled on the Green Peppercorn cake and that’s now my faithful choice. Most people like it, and those who don’t, well they’re out of luck at our house over the Christmas holidays and just have to settle for shortbread!

One year at work my husband won the Christmas raffle to our collective astonishment …we never win anything. It had the usual huge variety of Christmas delights including a fruit cake. That may be the only time we’ve re-gifted fruit cake….just not in the league with our homemade specialty.

Thank you so much for visiting my blog. I am pleased when readers enjoy something I've shared, and love hearing your comments.

You can search for a topic in the SEARCH bar at the top right. Alternatively on the sidebar you will find a CATEGORIES box with a drop-down menu. My other blogs are on the right sidebar under BLOGROLL.